joanne.poindexter@roanoke.com 981-3232

In Cuzco, Peru, Sharon Myers has been dubbed the "Goodmother of the Disabled."

A dining hall where the needy get free food was named in her honor. Cuzco Coraje, the wheelchair basketball association Myers started there, has grown from five to 150 members.

The town has cut out street curbs to make it easier to maneuver wheelchairs and crutches because of Myers' recommendation.

A 22-year-old polio victim named her daughter after Myers, an award-winning athlete and an advocate for people with disabilities.

Myers, 57, leaves her Troutville home Sept. 29 for a two-week visit to Cuzco and Lima. The trip won't be much of a vacation. Myers is on a mission.

She's fulfilling a dream she's had since visiting Cuzco in October 1999.

She wants people who use wheelchairs, crutches or canes or who can't see or hear to be able to go where able-bodied people go with ease.

"I'm not disabled unless my environment makes me disabled," explained Myers, who was paralyzed by polio at the age of 3. But she's visited more than 15 countries as an athlete and consultant.

She and Billy Myers, her husband of 35 years, are gold medal winners in the Pan American Games and the Para-Olympics Games that are held every four years in the same locale as the Olympics. Billy Myers was paralyzed in a diving accident before they were married.

Before ending her athletic career in 1991, Myers competed in archery, basketball, track and swimming.

When she retired, she feared her international travel was over. But through friendships she developed while competing, Myers has become somewhat of an ambassador for others who have limited mobility.

She'd dreamed of returning to the place where she won her first Pan Am medals, not as a tourist, but to give back to the country. So, Myers is paying her own airfare and most of her room and board costs to go to Cuzco and Lima to distribute more than 250 wheelchairs, many of which have been refurbished by inmates.

"Sharon is probably making one of the first donations - at least the first one that I know of - of sports chairs to the people of Peru," said Jose Antonio Isola de Lavalle.

Myers' donation is huge for both Cuzco Coraje and the Lima Polio Society that he formed, Isola said.

It'll give athletes in these organizations "the opportunity of practicing sports with the proper equipment. You should really see the chairs most of them are using right now," he said.

Myers also is coordinating her trip with Wheels for the World and the Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality.

Her itinerary will include being the guest of honor at the Sports Day in the Municipality of San Isidro, a district in Lima, Isola said.

She'll conduct wheelchair basketball clinics there and in Cuzco and meet with municipal and hotel officials to find ways to make hotels and public properties more accessible.

She also will visit a breakfast program, Vaso de Leche, which means Glass of Milk. "It is intended for the children and people with disabilities in situations of extreme poverty," Isola said in an e-mail.

Those who eat there can also get lunch at less than 33 cents in U.S. money, he said.

The breakfast and lunch programs are organized and supported by the Peruvian government, "but the actual popular dining room where it's served - in Spanish, Comedor Popular - is named after Sharon," Isola wrote.

In Cuzco, Myers and Isola also will conduct a two-hour seminar about Post Polio Syndrome. He organized one last year for the doctors of that area of Peru, but "this time we are going to address directly those who had polio and now are going through the late effects of the disease or have PPS," Isola said.

Her biggest thrill, Myers said, will be meeting her namesake and attending a baptism service for 2 1/2 -year-old Sharon Jimenez. The child's mother, Gladis Jimenez, had delayed the service until Myers could attend.

The two women developed a friendship three years ago when Myers started Cuzco Coraje and gave Jimenez a wheelchair.

"I saw me in her when I was that age. I thought there was very little hope," Myers recalled.

Jimenez used crutches and a brace and spoke no English when they first met. But through an interpreter, the two laughed and cried together, Myers said.

When she started competing nearly 40 years ago, Myers often felt guilty about the inferior equipment, especially wheelchairs, some of her competitors had. But whatever they lacked in equipment, they made up for in determination, Myers recalled.

"I learned real quickly the spirit of competition," she said.

The Peruvians' acceptance of the handicapped athletes inspired Myers.

She remembers that "the people were so willing to assist. We were real heroes to them. They had such respect for all the athletes competing there. These Third World countries gave us the best they had to offer ... a kindness I will always cherish.

"The thrill of my life is to be with these people," Myers said.

She also plans to gather information and more pictures for her autobiography, "Color Me Blessed," and her children's book, "The Little Shoeshine Boy," about a boy she met on an earlier trip to Peru.

She said she wants the books to educate the public about people with disabilities and to help raise money for the people in Cuzco.

Her life story will detail the obstacles she's faced. When she first started traveling, it often was impossible for her to get her wheelchair through the bedroom doors of hotels or to get from one building to another. She sometimes had to be lifted, she recalled.

These days, through the Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality and other travel agencies, Myers inspects hotels and other facilities, consulting with managers and staffs on how they can make their properties more accessible. "Sometimes it's something as simple as a suitcase ramp," she said.

"Everything that's better for us is also better for able-bodied people," she said.